I am a natural thinker. These days, I don’t think in the way of rumination (although, I’d be lying if I said I that I am never preoccupied by my thoughts) as much as I think with curiosity. This kind of questioning leads to a value system I have adopted, resulting in some unconventional behaviors on my behalf. My approach goes like this: Why the hell not?
Why not. Why can’t I be vegan. What’s stopping me? Why can’t I humanize myself (appropriately) in the middle of a “business situation?” Why can’t I sing in the car, with a friend sitting on the passenger side next to me (maybe even singing along too!)? Why can’t I dance when I am not drunk? Why can’t I play in the mud? Why can’t I make mistakes (or rather, accept that I do)? Why can’t I enjoy my own resources, my own company, without having to sell my soul to a person or an idea that society has created? Why can’t I live a little more wild, a little more free?
I am not perfect, and thus am not on my A game with this mindset all the time. In me admitting this, I will take it one step further and say that my imperfection is just another quality that I find beautiful. Ultimately in a roundabout way I can accept it is not about mastering my wild side; It is about me practicing it.
Two weeks ago I started running in the graveyard by my apartment again. I did this all last summer, a handful of times a week. I like to run in the graveyard by my place when the sun is out, the sky is blue, and it is moderately warm enough that I am not shivering in a tank top and work out shorts. I usually run with my earbuds plugged into my ears, listening to music or an audiobook from my iPhone, with bright pink toe shoes that emulate what it feels like to be barefoot. I go out there and I run when I feel like it. When I don’t feel like running or need to take a break I kindly let myself wander, just enjoying the atmosphere- the trees blowing in the wind, the art etched into the gravestones- because why not. I am not trying to prove anything except kindness to myself and to feel respectfully connected to my environment.
Some people may find this different. Politically, running in a graveyard could seem like a sign of disrespect. As a thinker, who does not just do this type of thing without some kind of introspection, this is the way I look at it:
Number one: Someday when I die, if I still have a sort of consciousness, I would love strangers to visit me. Not because they were sad to see me gone, but because they were just living their lives and they were open to celebrating my life by just passing through. I would not want them to be afraid or uptight, just because I had once lived but am no longer living. I would want them to know that even though we never personally knew each other, we share more in common than we could imagine, so we are friends enough to also share the soil of the Earth.
Number two: We are afraid of death because we are afraid of things we don’t understand. I am frankly, tired of living this way. It is nice to just accept things as they are, without having to try to interpret their meaning all the time. Even when we think concepts are concrete enough to be understood, I believe many times it is just an illusive comprehension, fogged up by personal biases and prejudices. If we can’t accept death, how can we accept truly embracing our lives? If we can’t accept things as they are, however they are, how can we really let go enough to live?
Number three: I find it humbling that each one of those people underneathe their graves, at one point had lives, dreams, personality, ambitions, fears, just like I do now. In life, they struggled, as I do… and hopefully, I can dream that they found love in some capacity. This feeling makes me connected to these people, like- even though they are dead we are truly all in this thing called life together.
Everyone is entitled to their own approach. Maybe running in Graveyards is not your approach to life. If you can take anything away from this entry, I hope you are inspired to explore ways in which you can embrace the full expression of you regardless of what anyone/anything else tells you. It’s hard to find yourself (trust me, I know) when you are being fed messages about how you should look, how you should think, how you should feel, what you should do- 24/7. As I said at the beginning of this entry, my energy goes less into ruminating over how I don’t fit into the expectations of these powerful messages, and more into why these messages exist and where they come from in the first place. Polititics, and perfection at the end of the day are just ideas (not facts) and sometimes I queston if these ideas are created with the most compassionate intentions. My gut says that they aren’t, so I consider it my responsibility to take initiative and make intelligent but compassionate judgement calls on my own.
thesearchwithinme 